Quote Originally Posted by Kraxis
Interesting strategy there...

But I would call it an exploit. The AI doesn't do it, and I really doubt it was intended to be like this. However, you can argue your point, that it is just an escort.

In any case it is up to your yourself to find out what you consider an exploit.
Actually, the AI does at least part of this strategy/exploit (probably, unintentionally): it frequently knocks my merchants off resources by placing its troops on the northeast corner of the resource my merchant was harvesting. I have not borthered checking the composition of those stacks (whether there was a merchant of their own in). This frequently happens near Milan/Venice which are high traffic zones though.